How do you seat sloppy gas checks??

[barrabruce]

I finally succumbed to trying gas checks.
Bought a box of hornady checks 30 cal.
They will go on to my lee bullets well but I have a old lyman mould I'm playing with at the moment and the gas check shanks casts a bit small.
If I size the bullet first then try the gas checks they will slide on a bit better but still can get off centre /wonky when putting through the size die.

My only success so far is to put some paper over the base of the bullet and push the check on to keep them tight enough to size without distortion.

Sorry if there are 50 threads on this but the most I have read are about expanding the checks to fit on a larger base.
This mold may in time be honed slightly larger....if I really need to do it ...others wise I don't want to play with it at all.

I'm sure it will be so easy/peasey and simple but I have ran out of ideas.

Thanks

Bruce

[Ben]

Bruce,

If your gas check shank is truly small, you can enlarge it with a small wooden dowel spun with a slow speed electric drill and 320 grit sand paper. ( GO SLOW , cast and measure your bullets from the mold after you've removed a bit of metal )

Your bullets should have a .284 - .285 " diameter gas check shank. What do your cast bullets that are falling from your mold right now measure on the g/c shank ?

Could you measure with a micrometer rather than a caliper if possible ?

Ben

[nekshot]

What ben says is most sensible however I have some times made checks using thinner material and they were lose so I had a little container of LEEs alox that was kinda drying out and I simply rub bottom of shank on the alox and then put on check and push thru sizer. Never had any leading issues so I guess it all went well and stayed together.

[barrabruce]

Yeah thanks.

They measure 0.281"-0.283" on the tapered shank 0.284 across the parting line.

I cast a nut on the sprue for a lap and slightly rubbed the mould out to clean it up and it appears that one side of the mould block is smaller than the other as it shined one side and none the other. It is a bit wider leading up to the parting lines and I wanted to just lick it a bit to see if I could get a rounder bullet.
It seems to be shooting o.k. if I align the parting line up between the 4 rifling grooves thou.

I have tried lube on the base but the lee whack'em sizer from the lee pan lube kit with this bullet 311466 seats deep enough and the gas check is wide enough so there is a inherent gap between the two. When I tap the rod thou the initial shock can easily separate the two like two cannoning pool balls I suppose.And that's when things can get out of kilter.

I have tried improvising a sort of gasheck sizer but have to make something up properly if I don't want to distort the checks before seating.

Hope that clears things up a bit

Yeah I might be able to "fix" this mould up but don't want to bubba it trying also.

I'll try gluing them on with alox first and see if it can stick enough.
Waxy lube as a filler has had so so results so far.

Bruce

[94Doug]

There was also a utube video of a way to crimp the checks using a collet die, such as the lee set up. Don't know if that's still out there....

Doug

[Ben]

Bruce,

You will most likely not be happy with your results until you get a consistent .284 " on the gas check shanks for the gas checks to " bite into ".

Loose fitting gas checks breed nothing but problems .

[Beagle333]

If it's a Lyman that you really like, you could have Erik drill out your shanks to size.

[WILCO]

How do you seat sloppy gas checks??

Politely. [smilie=1:

[Whiterabbit]

Alloy. If I cast with SOFT lead through a given mold, the checks wont even seat. I have to use a seater tool I built (using guidelines found on this wonderful site!).

Then I switched to a higher tin and antimony content, and I discovered the checks fit loosey-goosey. Not to worry, as soon as they went through an intermediate push through sizer, they were on solid as can be. Then off to the lubriziser.

If you muddle with your alloy, I'm sure you'll get it perfect. try reducing antimony.

-------------------

edit: noticed you said 30 cal, I assume rifle. I shoot softer lead in my 7x57 without issue (to 2000 fps only, no faster). With gas check. So I wouldn't be worried per-say about pulling Sb out of alloy that's gonna be shot in a rifle, assuming the GC is there.

I usually think of the GC as being a crutch I can lean on to be lazy about alloy and still get good results.

[Duckiller]

A drop of super glue on the base of the boolit or the inside of the gas check. Drys fast and keeps checks in place. Not a good long term solution but will keep a few on to see if you want to use checks.

[xacex]

You could powder coat the whole boolit. That will give you a consistent .002 diameter increases for your small mold to bring it up to where it should have dropped in the first place.